


First Aid

by SilverRollu



Category: Tenkai Knights
Genre: Blood, Gen, Graphic Description of Injuries, Hurt/Comfort, Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-28
Updated: 2014-06-28
Packaged: 2018-02-06 02:41:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1841305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverRollu/pseuds/SilverRollu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes the knights would get kicked around in fights before they eventually pulled themselves together and fought back. This would lead to a familiar feeling of fatigue when they arrived back on Earth; there’d be dull, sore spots on their bodies in the same places they took damage as knights. Mr. White says that's normal, and on Earth they'd only have ghost pains, no actual wounds.</p><p>Well, that's the way it <i>should</i> be...</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Aid

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so, so sorry;;; This is a really, REALLY self-indulgent injury fic. Some of the description of his wounds here might be a bit gross so fair warning.

When they emerge from Quarton, fatigued from their last battle with Vilius’ army, it’s already night time. The kids each take this news differently; Ceylan and Toxsa brainstorm several ridiculous excuses to tell their parents, with Chooki telling them that their outlandish stories probably won’t work. But Guren simply stands off to the side, sighs, leans heavily against the side of the couch and tries his best to look happy and supportive when his friends turn to him for advice.

They haven’t noticed.

Fighting together as the Tenkai Knights usually didn’t come with too high a risk. The four, often enough, would get kicked around in fights before they eventually pulled themselves together and fought back. This would lead to a familiar feeling of fatigue when they arrived back on Earth; there’d be dull, sore spots on their bodies in the same places they took damage as knights. White assured them, however, that this was natural. And sure enough, never had they taken any serious damage, only ghost pains. Inklings like something is there, but investigated to find that everything’s completely fine.

None of the other kids brought up anything other than the usual “man, my back is sore!” when coming out of a tough battle, which, now, has brought Guren to a strange and frightening conclusion:

He, alone, was coming out of Quarton with actual wounds.

One day it was a scratch. Just a scratch, on his cheek. It was red, and it only stung a little bit until he put a bandaid on it. A few days later, on his shoulder, was a rather long but very shallow cut. It barely bled. He noticed only after getting home, as he’d assumed it was just another phantom pain, a little soreness left over after tackling another siege of corrupted enemies and getting scratched by a weapon in the fight.

He brought it up to Ceylan once, who said “it’s never happened to me before. Are you even sure it’s from Quarton?”

The other two knights said similar things. Suggested he talk to White but Guren shrugged it off, telling them he probably just fell or hurt himself on a tree branch or something. It’s never been mentioned again. And he’s dealt with it ever since.

Dealt with it like he is right now. Guren thinks he’s hiding it pretty well so far. There’s a dull ache on his left side and arm, but he’s doing well to avoid wincing or making pained noises when he moves. White finishes his short after-mission speech and sends them on their way, and Guren is the last one out the shop, walking slowly, avoiding any sudden or drawn out movements.

The others ride their bikes home, but Guren smiles and says he’ll just walk his. Just the thought of getting on the bike makes him grimace, so he’s fine when his friends ride off without him. He eventually ends up at home where a quick look over of the house tells him that his dad isn’t home. The lights are off. And sure enough, inside there’s a note on the kitchen table that says “sorry, but I have to work late. Dinner’s in the fridge.”

The first aid kit is under the bathroom sink. Guren opens it, gathers the things inside around him as he settles on the floor. His first shirt, the red one, comes off easily and he throws it somewhere out of the way. Sticking to him, however, is his white undershirt. He doesn’t immediately see blood though, and relief washes over him as he slowly lifts it up, wincing, when the skin lifts up with it.

His body is peppered with several scrapes, long scratches where the skin was ripped to reveal the soft pink flesh underneath. It spread from below his armpit, down his side, and across his chest. There’s thin scratches, with a tiny bit of blood smeared through them, and areas that are raised and swollen and red, the skin pulled back and hanging by thin threads from his body. He touches a spot experimentally, pulling back and whimpering when he does.

The memory hits him right then. Of dodging a blow rather closely and falling, skidding along the ground and rolling through the dirt until he eventually stopped, landing roughly on his side. He’d gotten back up rather quickly on Quarton and continued fighting as usual. He figured it wouldn’t be that bad, none of the injuries he’d gotten while fighting (some cuts on his arms, a little bruise here or there, a burn or two) had been that bad.

But this...

This is worse than he’s ever had to deal with before. His father showed him, once when he fell and scraped up his knee, how to gently wipe the skin and cover it, with bandaids, so that it’ll heal. This reminds him of that day, but the pain hurts so much more, and he’s sure that a little bandaid won’t cover this. Not like a skinned knee or a scratched cheek or a small cut on his arm.

The thought pricks his eyes and he blinks to will the tears back. How was he even going to do this? He isn’t sure where to begin. After a few moments he thinks, resolutely, that the first thing he should do is clean it, like he’s always been told to do. He’s already wet a cloth in preparation for this, but once he picks it up and brings it closer to the injury, with the intention to actually touch it again, he hesitates. His hand shakes. It’s going to hurt, he knows. It’s going to hurt a lot.

He does it slowly; he has to, because he can’t do it any other way. He wipes at the blood, pulling away hanging pieces of skin in the process. The tears are back, muddling his vision, and he’s biting his bottom lip so hard that he hardly notices the new blood leaking onto his tongue. When the cloth touches the sensitive skin it stings and he twitches, even though he’s trying so, so hard not to because it makes the process longer.

By the time he’s done cleaning as much as he possibly can he’s shaking, tears falling freely down his cheeks. His breathing shallows as he tries dealing with the pain, doing his best not to make a sound and failing, small whimpering sounds leaving him with every movement he makes no matter how small.

It hurts. It hurts so much and Guren wishes, fleetingly, that his dad would appear. Wishes his dad would come through the door at that exact moment to take care of him, to wrap him up, and make everything go away. But he doesn’t, so Guren picks up a roll of bandages and opens it gingerly.

His first two attempts to wrap the bandages up fail miserably. He tries tucking one end of the bandage in place under his armpit while wrapping the rest around, but he can’t get one full rotation before he drops it all. The third attempt leaves him frowning, his head aching from the pure frustration of being helpless. He can’t do this, why can’t he do this. God, the tears are welling up again, and he wipes at them furiously.

The next few attempts are failures too until eventually, finally, he manages to bandage himself up, checking the bathroom mirror to survey the way the white strips cover his sides, his chest, his stomach. The wrappings are a bit loose, but it’s the best a child so young could do on his own, and they rub against his skin in all the wrong ways. When he moves it aches, so he does so slowly and deliberately. Hiding the bloody clothes, placing the first aid back in its place and hoping his dad doesn’t discover what’s missing.

Guren stumbles into his room, throws on the biggest, loosest shirt he has and plops into bed where Max, previously curled up on his pillow, moves to allow his owner to crawl silently under his covers.

A sigh. The pain from his swollen side bothers him all night; it pulsates, over and over, like the thump-thump-thumping of a heartbeat, and it lures him into a restless sleep.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> It says its only one chapter but there's a very strong possibility that I will continue this and it will get much worse;;


End file.
